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Bookkeeping Machines

National

In 1902 St. Louis patent attorney Halcolm Ellis and mechanical engineer Nathan W. Perkins, Jr. took out a patent for an adding machine. Ellis then patented a combination adding machine and typewriter, and tried to manufacture it in Massachusetts. When his funds dried up, he returned to St. Louis and organized the Ellis Adding-Typewriter Company. The firm soon moved to New Jersey, with Perkins managing the company’s engineering division. By 1911, it was selling the Ellis adding typewriter.

The Inventions Department at National Cash Register Company developed the firm’s first bookkeeping machine, the NCR Class 2000. It went on the market in the early 1920s. While some customers used it, the machine lacked a typewriter that could describe transactions in detail. In 1928 NCR purchased rights to the Ellis adding typewriter. It soon introduced the successful Class 3000 bookkeeping machine.

NCR expanded its offerings in 1943, when it purchased the Allen Wales Company in 1943. Allen Wales offered a much less expensive bookkeeping machine, as well as an adding machine. Modifications of these machines would sell even after the introduction of NCR’s first electronic accounting machines in the mid-1950s.

The machine combines the capabilities of a printing adding machine with the ability to print a few letters. It is a modification of the Allen Wales adding machine produced after the National Cash Register Company had acquired that company.

The device has a gray-brown metal case and nine columns of green and white color-coded plastic number keys. Odd-numbered keys are concave, even numbered keys, flat. Immediately to the right of these keys is a column of red keys marked with letters designating the significance of the number entered (e.g. one key reads “TX”, perhaps for designating taxes). To the right of the keyboard is a lever, and, to its right, a column of four function bars and keys. To the left of the keyboard are four other function keys. Above the keyboard is a row of nine openings under a glass cover.The openings show digits in the total. Behind this result window are two metal levers, one for tabs and the other for non-printing.

Behind the openings is the printing mechanism, with a red and black ribbon. The spools of the ribbon are under metal covers that are screwed in place. The mechanism includes a set of five wheels that can be set to a date. Behind these is a sheet of clear plastic, the carriage, and the narrow paper tape. The carriage is 39 cm. (15 1/4”) across, and divided into two parts. The narrow section on the left side takes a narrow paper tape, which is 6 cm. (2 1/2”) wide and is turned by a wheel on the left. The wider section on the right side takes pieces of paper and apparently was used to enter both figures and the date. The machine has a rubber cord and four rubber feet.

A tag on the front of the machine reads: 158 552366. A mark on the back of the machine reads: MANUFACTURED BY (/) THE NATIONAL CASH REGISTER COMPANY (/) OF DAYTON, OHIO, U.S.A.. AT ITS (/) MANUFACTURING DIVISION (/) AT ITHACA, N.Y., U.S.A.